October 7

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of the actual Scoreboard at the end of the en:1916 Cumberland vs. Georgia Tech football game.

October 7, 1916 - The most lopsided victory in the history of college football occurs when legendary Coach John Heisman led his Georgia Tech team to a 222-0 victory over the outmanned Cumberland College squad. This story according to an article posted by the NCAA may have started the year prior. Heisman at that time was also the school's baseball coach. The two schools met on the baseball diamond in 1915, and Cumberland peppered the Tech ballers 22-0. Heisman was furious, feeling that his opponents had stacked their roster with professional ringers, which severely outclassed his group of true amateur collegiate players. Heisman had his eye on some redemption as he knew his gridder team had Cumberland College on their schedule for the 1916 season. The plot thickened though when Cumberland decided to drop its football program completely.

This schedule commitment prior to the discontinuation of the football team made Cumberland forced to play the October 7 game or face a steep fine of $3000, payable to Georgia Tech for the breach of contract for the game. This was some big money in that era. The school's officials charged the team's student manager with the rask of assembling a team to face the Ramblin' Wreck. This poor soul filled out the roster with a bunch of his fraternity brothers, who felt it obligatory to help one of their own out of a jam, besides it sounded like fun. Especially when John Heisman vowed to give the Cumberland eleven $500 for travel expenses, which equates to just over $11,500 in today's money.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of game action of Georgia Tech vs Cumberland October 7, 1916 football game. Tech is on the left.

Georgia Tech on the otherhand was stocked with players that would later win the national championship in 1917 by defeating Cal in the Rose Bowl. Okay you know the score that we shared with you in the first sentence of this post, but here are some of the stats of the Most Lopsided Game in football history.

• Cumberland had only 45 offensive plays, out done by only 28 run by Tech!
• Cumberland committed 15 turnovers or roughly one of every three they lost the ball!
• Passer Leon McDonald threw four interceptions in the game, and then was relieved of his QB duties by George Murphy who tossed two more picks.
• 5 of the 6 interceptions were pick sixes
• Two of the fumbles were scoop and scores
• Six kicking plays were returned for touchdowns by the Yellow Jackets, including four punts and two kickoffs. (I am not sure how Cumberland had to kick off twice, perhaps a safty?)

Update from loyal reader/listener Peter S. on this subject: "Back then a team could elect to kick off rather than receive a kickoff after a score by their opponents. Since offenses were not very prolific back then, it was to a team's advantage to kick off--your opponent started at their 20 yard line (on average), and if they went 3 and out (pretty common at the time), they would punt back to you and you would end up getting the ball back somewhere between your own 40 and midfield; so you were "gaining" 20 or 30 yards by kicking off. 
Of course this doesn't work if the opponents are scoring on every other play they run, but I guess it took Cumberland a bit of time to figure that out.
Another example of kicking off after the other team scores on you was how Red Grange scored 4 touchdowns in the First Quarter against Michigan in 1924--each time he scored, Michigan elected to kick off to Illinois, presumably because "he won't be able to do that again" " Thank you to Peter for setting us straight on this. If you have any feedback please email us at pigskindispatch@gmail.com like Peter did!

That does not include one of the weirdest plays in college football history. In the second quarter, after Georgia Tech scored to make it 105-0, Jim Preas kicked off to Cumberland’s Gouger, who fumbled the ball. Then Preas, the kicker, recovered the kick and scored before kicking the extra point as well to push Tech’s lead to 112-0.

• Speaking of Preas he nailed a record 18 extra point attempts in the first half. He was relieved of this duty for the second half (he may have been too tired) by Tommy Spence, who converted five in a row before missing back-to-back tries and then he was replaced. George Everett Strupper made one in the fourth quarter, and then Bill Fincher hit six more in the fourth, giving Georgia Tech a 30-for-32 mark on the day.
• There was not one first down recorded by either team.
• Tech scored 63 points inthe first quarter, and then matched that total again in the second.
• Heisman's team did not attempt even one pass during the contest, they did't have to when they were averaging a staggering 4.5 point per play on the ground!
• Georgia Tech's defense and special teams accounted for a whopping 96 points in the contest out gunned by the offense that generated 126 tallies of their own.

This is the beatdown of all beatdowns in any sport. Heisman has gone down in history as one of the greats in the game of football one of the good guys, but if someone got under his dander, by golly they were surely going to pay for it.

October 7, 1979 - Dino Hall of the Cleveland Browns returns a franchise record 9 kickoffs in a game. It is probably not a record that the franchise nor their fans wanted to witness as their rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers put up a 50 burger, in the 51-35 Steel-town win at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

October 7, 1984 - Walter Payton hits a major milestone as he surpassed the great Jim Brown's 12312 yards as the NFL's All-Time leading rusher. Sweetness navigated his way through the New Orleans Saints defense in a 20-7 win at Soldier Field.

October 7, 2012 - Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints etches his name once again in the NFL record books breaking legendary quarterback Johnny Unitas's record of 48 consecutive games with a touchdown pass. The streak continued when wideout Devery Henderson hauled in the scoring strike from Brees as the Saints prevailed 31-24 over Mr. Brees former team, the San Diego Chargers at the Superdome.

October 7, 1921 - Vaughn Mancha a center from the University of Alabama was born. According to an article on nolefan.org Mancha suffered from the loss of vision in one eye due to a childhood accident but that didn't deter him from having an extremely productive football career at both the collegiate and professional levels. Due to his injury Mancha was unable to serve in the military, so the patriotic young man joined the Merchant Marines to aid in the war efforts. After the fighting was over, Vaughn enrolled at Alabama and became a four year letterman and one of the best football players in school history. For the Tide he was a two-way player manning both the center and linebacker positions. In 1948 the Boston Yanks picked Mancha in the NFL draft. A knee injury cut short his NFL playing career so Vaughn got into coaching. He started out at Livingston State, which would eventually become the University of West Alabama, and in his first year at the helm in 1949, his team knocked off Florida State. The two teams did not play again but a couple years later in 1952, the Florida State brass decided to hire Mancha as an assistant coach, a role he stayed at for 5 seasons. In 1957 Mancha moved to New York City where he coached the linebackers at Columbia University as he worked on a graduate degree at the school. After a few short years in the Big Apple he returned to the Seminoles to become their Athletic Director. It was during the twelve seasons that Mancha served in that role that the Florida State program became a national powerhouse, as they played other big name schools and this spread to other sports teams at the school as well. The National Football Foundation voted Mr. Mancha into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1990.

October 7, 1950 - Dick Jauron was a former Yale University running back that played for the Bulldogs from 1970 through the 1972 season. Jauron was a First-Team All-Ivy League selection and led his team in rushing in all three of the seasons he played for Yale. The Detroit Lions picked Dick in the fourth round of the 1973 NFL Draft. His eight year playing career also saw him spend three seasons as a member of the Cincinnati Bengals. After his playing days he worked as a coach in the NFL for 28 seasons, including being the Head Coach of both the Chicago Bears and the Buffalo Bills. Jauron earned the 2001 NFL Coach of the Year Award. Dick Jauron was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2015.

October 7, 1976 - Was the birth anniversary of Charles Woodson, a cornerback from the University of Michigan. The footballfoundation.org website informs us that Woodson is the only primarily defensive player to have ever won the Heisman Trophy. Woodson was a two -time First-Team All-American player for the Wolverines and played on the Michigan National Championship team of 1997. One of the biggest games of the '97 season was a game against arch-rival Ohio State. Charles had a very big part in the Wolverines victory over the Buckeyes. The defensive back intercepted a pass in the endzone, returned a kick 78 yards and caught an offensive 37 yard pass for Michigan's only touchdown of the game. Again he came on strong in a big game to preserve a 12-0 season in the Rose Bowl against Washington State University. In that bowl game he had a Rose Bowl record 4 pass break ups and recorded an interception. In addition to the Heisman Trophy mentioned earlier, Charles took home the Walter Camp Award, Jim Thorpe Award, Chuck Bednarik Ward, Bronko Nagurski Trophy to go along with the National Championship hardware he helped Michigan achieve!  The National Football Foundation selected Charles Woodson into their College Football Hall of Fame in 2018.